


The Oncoming Storm

by amorremanet



Series: lost in a tempest [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: (Between Iverson & Shiro), Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Champion Keith (Voltron), Galra Shiro (Voltron), M/M, Mentor/Protégé, Shiro (Voltron) is a Mess, Shiro (Voltron)-centric, Zine: Stargazing - A Sheith AU Zine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-27
Updated: 2018-08-27
Packaged: 2019-07-03 09:37:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15816282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amorremanet/pseuds/amorremanet
Summary: It’s been nearly a year since the Kerberos Mission failed and a seven months since Shiro got dishonorably discharged from the Garrison, but Iverson insists on paying him visits. Shiro shouldn’t be left alone, he figures, especially not tonight of all nights: October 23rd, Keith’s birthday.Not that Shiro doesn’t appreciate this. But tonight, he’s a mess for reasons other than his beloved’s alleged death in space. Reasons that just so happen to involve tales of a mysterious Blue Lion.Then again, something else about his dedication is easier to explain. Shoving aside one of the jacket’s sleeves, Shiro reveals a small, black box and motions for Iverson to take a look inside. His long-suffering frown asks if this is necessary, and he sighs when Shiro nods that yes, it is. Cracking the box open, Iverson finds a gold ring with an inscription on the inside of the band:“Until the stars go black & longer.”





	The Oncoming Storm

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was my little contribution to [_Stargazing: A Sheith AU Zine_](https://sheithauzine.tumblr.com/). I had so much fun writing it, and I’m so excited to get to share it!

One benefit to living in the desert shack: Shiro can hear everything around for what might be miles. When his ears prick up at a far-off rumbling, he knows who’s coming for him and why. There’s time for Shiro to throw a sheet over his pinboard of maps and notes, or put away the remembrances sprawled out on his table, or kick the trash under his ratty sofa.

Except Shiro can’t will himself to stand. Tearing his eyes away from the photo he made Keith pose for at the Kerberos launch makes Shiro’s breath hitch in his throat. It doesn’t dislodge until he throws back another swig of whisky. It burns, though not enough to soothe him. Shiro’s gotten used to it, just like the way his skin prickles after too many hours in the sun, chasing down what drew him out here.

Shiro slumps into the sofa as an engine dies outside. At the crisp knock, he drawls, “Not home, sir.”

With a heavy sigh and a bag of heady-smelling takeout, Iverson lets himself in. “Your evening’s going about how I expected.”

Quirking his shoulders, Shiro grinds the arch of his bare foot against the table. “Been keeping busy,” he says. “‘m taking tonight off.”

Silently, Iverson furrows his brow as if he’ll find another picture, hidden in the one before him. Ruffling a hand over his increasingly unruly hair, Shiro can’t blame Iverson for wanting that. Three-day stubble scrapes Shiro’s palm. His black t-shirt’s collar gapes while he’s done his belt up tighter and his jeans have more give than they used to in the thighs. He’s got bruise-dark rings beneath his eyes and more freckles than he’s ever had smattered across his face.

All up, there’s no way Shiro hasn’t disappointed his mentor. At least Iverson joins Shiro on the sofa without making a point of that. Handing over a plastic fork and a container of Pad Thai, he frowns sympathetically. He doesn’t take anything out for himself; the rest must be another gift of food because, inexplicably, Iverson still cares about whether or not Shiro’s eating decently, even when he hasn’t been the Garrison’s problem for seven-and-a-half months.

With the air of someone stepping around broken glass, Iverson asks what Shiro’s been up to since his last visit. Nodding at the opposite wall only makes Iverson wrinkle his nose. He considers the pinboard for a moment before deciding, “I don’t understand, son.”

“Me neither. Not entirely, anyway.” Drunk as he is, Shiro pauses while getting down a few courtesy bites of this unexpected dinner. For one thing, you don’t talk with your mouth full. For another, he needs to glare at his notes and mull things over before saying, “Something weird’s going on out in the Canyon. Something about a blue lion.”

Iverson hums like he’s pondering this. “And I guess the blue lion hid a clue at the bottom of your bottle?”

“You _know_ what day it is.” Shiro rolls his eyes when this earns him no response. Skewering a cube of chicken, he glances out the window at the ink-black, moonless night and its dusting of stars. “October 23rd. Keith’s birthday. I assume that’s why you’re here.”

There’s no doubt about it. No need for Shiro to glower at Iverson, either. But he does it anyway, as if it might somehow prove that Shiro doesn’t need any pity.

Surely, some would call it ungrateful, the way Shiro narrows his eyes at his ex-commanding officer when Iverson didn’t _need_ to come out here. He didn’t _need_ to make excuses for Shiro or burn favors after the Garrison lost touch with the Kerberos mission’s crew, trying to keep Shiro from washing out — or even facing the bare minimum of consequences — when he quit showing up to TA for Iverson or Professor Montgomery, when he stayed out all night and came back to campus drunk, when he dug around in records for which he didn’t have the security clearance. Iverson didn’t _ever_ need to do anything for Shiro, so Shiro has no excuse for acting like a brat.

That logic checks out fair enough. Most people don’t know why Shiro fell apart after the Kerberos mission’s failure, why he threw away his glimmering potential and the golden future he worked himself sick to earn. For most, it makes no sense. Shiro came from nothing: no family, no money, no prospects. Garrison scuttlebutt before he left wondered how one of their best young officers could spit on all the work that he’d done to build a life for himself, or why he didn’t seem to care anymore.

Iverson, though, sighs without pointing out any of that. “God, your hair grows fast, doesn’t it.”

“Always has.” Shiro musses a palm over the bits lying against the back of his neck, grazing the top of his spine. “I tie it up while I’m working.”

Iverson nods. “There something wrong with your teeth?”

“No,” Shiro bites out — but in case he’s wrong, he tongues at one of his canines.

 _Oh, Hell_ — Shiro cringes, fails to repress a groan. When he falls behind on maintenance, his teeth might as well be fangs, bigger and sharper than they should be. Scrubbing at his nose, Shiro can’t remember when he last filed down these hard, unavoidable reminders that, despite his best efforts, he has never been a normal person. He’s wondering where he even put his tools when Iverson asks to borrow a finger.

Shiro grimaces at the silver piece of med-tech in Iverson’s hand, but when a needle pricks him, he doesn’t flinch. He surrenders a few drops of blood, which ought to be a decent compromise, proof that there’s no need for Iverson to worry.

The device’s telltale beep, however, makes Iverson gape. First, at the screen. Then, at Shiro.

He looks between them a few more times before spluttering, “How in the Sam Hell are you still conscious.”

Shrugging, Shiro supposes that he doesn’t know. He’s been drinking since sundown and Iverson’s right: Shiro should be feeling it more. Showing more signs. His head’s muddled, but only with the same storm of guilt that Shiro’s carried inside of him for months. As he picks through more of his dinner, Shiro’s thoughts come to him with a clear, hard focus. He doesn’t speak, not because it’s hard, but because he has nothing to say.

This offers Iverson little in the way of comfort, and after a time, he turns to looking through the objects that Shiro laid out on the table. The photo that Mrs. Holt took of him and Keith at the Kerberos launch. An album of Shiro’s own snapshots, never shown to anyone but Keith before. On the cover is a picture Shiro took in his old dormitory, one morning while Keith was sleeping, black hair all askew and looking so peaceful. Two of Keith’s old journals, stuffed to the brim with his old notes and his impossibly meticulous handwriting. Keith’s cropped red jacket, covertly stolen from Garrison storage after Shiro got himself kicked out. The strand of silver prayer beads that Shiro said he’d keep safe because it’s one of the only things Keith has left of the Grandfather who raised him.

Only one thing on the table isn’t somehow tied to Keith: Shiro’s old knife. He doesn’t know where it came from, why he has it, or what its faintly purple blade is made of. Still, Shiro’s had this knife since before he met Keith or Iverson, before he scored a scholarship for flight school, before he got placed in his first foster home. Usually fixed to Shiro’s hip, the knife sits cradled in Keith’s jacket, shining in the dim lamplight.

Shaking his head, Iverson grumbles, “There’s a fine line between grief and obsession, son.”

“Maybe so, but tonight? This is neither.” Despite knowing better, Shiro sneers at his noodles. “You of all people ought to understand.”

“I understand that what happened to Kogane and the Holts _was not_ your fault.”

“God, seriously? We’re back on _this_ again—”

“Try forgiving yourself.” With a huff, Iverson clarifies, “Better yet, try understanding that nothing you’ve done _needs_ forgiveness. Encouraging him to fly to Kerberos doesn’t make you responsible for what happened.”

“I didn’t say that—”

“Not in this conversation—”

“We don’t need to go over this again—”

“ _Really_ ,” Iverson deadpans, holding up Shiro’s nearly empty bottle.

“After what I found today, sir?” Shiro stares at his pinboard. “You’d be drinking, too.”

“It’s been nearly a year, Shiro.” The bottle clicks against the floor as Iverson sets it down. “I know what losing Kogane means to you—” Shiro barks out a cracking, bitter laugh, but Iverson doesn’t let up: “You’re better than this. Whether you’re at the Garrison or not, there’s more for you out there. Please, you need to let this go.”

“No, I don’t,” Shiro says without thinking, because he doesn’t need to. “Keith isn’t dead.”

With anyone else, Shiro couldn’t dream of saying this. Most people would think he’s out of his mind, and the people who know he’s right have vested interests in making him _look_ insane. But Iverson doesn’t insult Shiro like that. He must know more about what’s in the Garrison’s findings about the Kerberos mission — after all, he has the security clearance — but Shiro saw more than enough to know that he’s right. The Garrison’s official story is a lie.

No Garrison probes found evidence of a crash anywhere on Kerberos. They found the craft that Keith piloted and the artificial gravity generator that Commander Holt set up, still running. There were footprints that abruptly stopped, surrounded by distortion in the moon’s surface that none of the Garrison’s scientists understood. Although faint, the lingering energy signatures were like nothing that any human being has ever seen. Even before Shiro felt something calling him out here, conclusions started adding up.

Then again, something else about his dedication is easier to explain. Shoving aside one of the jacket’s sleeves, Shiro reveals a small, black box and motions for Iverson to take a look inside. His long-suffering frown asks if this is necessary, and he sighs when Shiro nods that yes, it is. Cracking the box open, Iverson finds a gold ring with an inscription on the inside of the band: _“Until the stars go black & longer.”_

“It’s not much,” Shiro murmurs. “But I saved up. So I could give it to Keith when he got back—”

“He _isn’t_ coming back, son.” Iverson snaps the box shut with the force that he didn’t put into his voice. As Shiro drags himself off the couch, Iverson tries to chew him out with, “You _know_ I can’t tell you what we think might’ve happened. Too dangerous. I can’t even tell my own man—”

“How _is_ Bennett doing, sir.” Shiro tries to focus on stashing the leftovers in his dumpster-rescue mini-fridge. He can’t help snarling, but at least he can stop himself from glaring at Iverson. “Can’t imagine he’s taking it well. He _must_ know that you’re hiding something. Especially with me washing out and Katie Holt going missing—”

“God, that girl thinks she’s subtle.” Without giving Shiro room to ask about that, Iverson gumbles, “But you? I don’t know _what_ you think you’re doing, right now.”

“D’you want to?” When he doesn’t get an answer, Shiro says again, “Do you want to know what I think I’m doing.”

Iverson spreads his arms like he’s saying _come at me_. “By all means, son. Do tell.”

That’s all the motivation that Shiro needs. He leaps to his feet and grabs his knife. Tightening his grip on the hilt, Shiro notices the square, sun-darkened spot on the back of his hand, the exact shape of the cut-outs in Shiro’s fingerless gloves. After a few weeks of dating on the sly, he and Keith got matching pairs, and wearing his while working in the canyons must have caught up with Shiro while he was too busy to notice.

No matter, though. He tilts his knife’s point toward the center of his map, where he’s marked out the mysterious energy source that drew him out here. Next, he nods to the different photos he’s taken of the carvings he found in the caves. Most of them concern the Blue Lion, whatever the Hell it is.

“It sounds mythological when you look at the pictograms.” Whipping around to point at one shot in particular, Shiro wobbles slightly but not enough to stop. “All the stories about it follow a similar pattern: ages ago, the Lion fell from the sky. Some people — _special_ people, supposedly more in-touch with the universe — they could feel the Lion talking to them in their heads—”

“We’ve got words for that phenomenon, these days,” Iverson points out.

As if he hasn’t heard anything, Shiro points at another picture, one of humanoid figures surrounding the lion. “It told the people that it needed help. Protection. It mentioned a chosen warrior who could make it fly, who could commune with the Lion and help it to…” Shiro shrugs, gives Iverson a bemused noise. “This part’s been tricky, but as far as I can tell? The Lion called its warrior a, ‘Guardian of the Sea.’ It said there were four other Lions hidden throughout the cosmos and one day, a new warrior would awaken it—”

“Where the Hell, exactly, have you found _any_ of this?” Rubbing at his good eye, Iverson sighs. “This is a fascinating fairy tale. But it sounds like you made it up to fit the pictures.”

Shiro needs all his self-restraint to hand Iverson one book he’s referenced instead of throwing it.

“Perks of being a fallen golden boy,” he snarks. “People look at my smile and my dress greys, then jump to help me out. Also?” He quirks both eyebrows. “You didn’t take the library network access off my old ID card.”

Not that he has direct evidence — or that Iverson’s uncomfortable shifting proves anything — but no one else would’ve left Shiro that privilege.

“Alright, fine,” Iverson sighs, thumbing through the book. “You’re working with decent-looking sources. But what did the Lion need protecting from?”

“Monsters.” By way of emphasizing that he _isn’t crazy_ , Shiro unpins a photo for Iverson. The carvings in it show hulking, bipedal beasts, chasing the Lion. “That’s only in one cave, out where the energy readings are strongest. They look older than the others. According to this, if the monsters get their hands on the Lion? Disaster.”

The pursed expression on Iverson’s face seems to say, _Son, there’s only one disaster here and I’m looking right at him._

Aloud, he asks, “What does this have to do with Kogane?”

“Something’s coming, very soon.” Shiro’s chest feels heavy as he lays a notebook open atop the photo album. Dropping to the floor, he explains, “It’s in a few carvings. A story about four keys, here on Earth, and a ‘star-child’—” Without putting down the knife, Shiro quirks his fingers in quotation marks. “Someone who disappeared, got tortured by the monsters. Their return brings the keys together so they can save everyone. That’s what I figured out today—”

“You being in love with him,” Iverson says, “does _not_ mean Kogane is this _star-child_.”

“Part of me hopes you’re right.” Shiro’s stomach twists at that confession. Glaring at his violet eyes, reflected in his blade, he hisses, “If the monsters are real? They better not have gotten their claws on Keith.”

Shiro hunches his shoulders like a cat, ready to lash out. He jabs his knife point-first into the table. His knuckles go white as he twists the hilt into his palm. “They’ll regret it. If I’m right about this? Then I swear to God, they’re going to regret every single thing they did to him—”

“Shiro, please,” Iverson all but begs. Slowly, he leans closer, reaches out.

He jerks back when Shiro smacks the table. When Shiro looks up at him, Iverson’s good eye is wide.

“I won’t let them get away with it,” Shiro snarls, baring his not-quite-fangs. “Any monsters who harmed him… I’m gonna _scour the universe_ for them. I’ll ferret them out and I will make sure that they can _never_ hurt Keith or anyone else _ever_ again.”

Iverson takes a long moment and several deep breaths before he can say, “What if they’re more than you can handle?”

As easy as the answer is, Shiro pretends to consider that question. After everything else he’s put Iverson through in the past year — every time he’s come out here for Shiro when he shouldn’t have needed to; every time that Shiro’s cried on him without telling him the truth of why; every time Iverson tried to talk Shiro into getting himself together and sticking with the Garrison — he owes Iverson that façade. His voice is deathly heavy with things that Iverson can’t tell Shiro unless he wants to get booted from the Garrison himself and slapped with treason charges. If Shiro _could_ , he’d give his mentor some peace of mind.

But Shiro refuses to lie: “On my life, sir? I will take them down or _die trying_.”

Heaving a sigh, Iverson gives that statement more thought than Shiro gave his question — but rather than answer, he says he’ll be right back. Closing the door doesn’t keep Shiro from hearing him pace around the porch. First, Iverson calls the Garrison, citing a _“family emergency”_ and asking Professor Montgomery if she can cover his classes tomorrow. Then, he calls Bennett because his husband deserves an update.

“Hospital? I’m worried, but I don’t know if I’ve got grounds.” Iverson grumbles, “Can’t leave him alone tonight. Maybe he’ll agree to getting help—”

Scoffing, Shiro picks up the photo from the Kerberos launch. His own face beams back at him, while Keith smirks and affectionately rolls his eyes. Maybe Iverson doesn’t understand. Maybe the Garrison won’t let him. But Shiro gives the picture a quick, chapped-lip kiss.

As if Keith can somehow hear him, Shiro whispers, “I’m coming for you, baby… I promise.”

**Author's Note:**

> As ever, I’m also available on [tumblr](https://amorremanet.tumblr.com) and Discord ( **amorremanet#5500** ), for…… pretty much everything, really.
> 
> [This fic](http://amorremanet.tumblr.com/post/177453488247/the-oncoming-storm) has a post on tumblr as well.


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